He was famous in the black sporting world for his two-sport career as a Harlem Globetrotters basketball player as well as a Black Barons’ star. To stay economically afloat, Negro League owners turned to selling their players to major league teams, but discovered that white owners often refused to acknowledge the validity of Negro League contracts or to pay what black owners considered to be fair-market value.ĭavis recognized the value of Mays. Negro League attendance had plummeted, causing many teams to fold.
He trained, protected and tutored Mays on the finer points of the game while not tinkering with his natural abilities.Īs important as Davis was to Mays’ maturation as a player, he was just as crucial in helping Mays begin the process of escaping a league that had no future. When Cat recognized that Willie’s talents were beyond the coal and steel leagues, he sought his former teammate, Lorenzo “Piper” Davis, to usher his son into the Negro Leagues.ĭavis, an All-Star who had once been considered a candidate to break baseball’s color line, became Mays’ guardian. Mays often played on the same industrial league team with his father, Cat, once a flashy center fielder himself. He was only 17, a high school student, but his talent allowed him to compete against men who had been in the league for years. The transaction was the culmination of one of the greatest, yet little-known sagas in baseball history, the story of how Willie Mays rode an underground railroad of sorts between baseball’s dying Negro Leagues to the major leagues.Ī prodigy in baseball-rich Birmingham, Mays broke into the Negro American League on July 4, 1948, signing a contract for $250 a month. In pencil, Hayes scribbled the words that sent Willie Mays to the world: “Accept your offer of $10,000 for Willie H. SCHWARZ IN WHICH WE OFFERED TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR THE ASSIGNMENT OF CONTRACT OF PLAYER WILLIE H MAYES JR AND YOU AGREED TO ASSIGN HIS CONTRACT TO THE MINNEAPOLIS BASEBALL CLUB FOR THAT AMOUNT. “THIS WILL CONFIRM TELEPHONE CONVERSATION TODAY WITH OUR MR. When the telegram from New York Giants owner Horace Stoneham arrived in Hayes’ hands, its simple confirmation belied a complex sequence of events that was about to result in a historically significant transaction that culminated in a Hall-of-Fame career marked by a previously unseen blend of ferocious power, blazing speed and game-changing defense. But so soon after Jackie Robinson’s integration of major league baseball, the scouting and acquiring of black players remained an awkward endeavor for teams, and mistrust festered on both sides. Since the 1948 season, several major league teams had asked about his teenage centerfielder, astounded by the youngster’s strength, athleticism and arm. Hayes owned the Negro League’s Birmingham Black Barons. Hayes had made his fortune in the mortuary business, but he was about to give life to one of the greatest careers in baseball history. Everything about Mays' courtship seems so foreign today, starting with the method by which the deal was completed.Ī Western Union telegram arrived at the Memphis office of Tom Hayes at 9:53 a.m. When the Giants scouted Mays, they feigned interest in another player to hide their affection with him. When the New York Giants signed Willie Mays, they paid his Negro Leagues team $10,000.
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